What is Our God-Given Right?

        The Statesville community has been abuzz with conversations over what might be considered a God-given right. I’ve been pondering that this week with you all, and how we might answer the challenging questions of our time. First off, let’s establish what a right is. I pulled down my dictionary and it is defined like this, “a just claim or title, through legal or moral bounds.” So the question becomes, what rights do we have given to us by God? What universal truths do all humans have from their Creator?

            I think that’s where a lot of people get mixed up, in my opinion, God does not give the right to one nation that they might be wealthy while watching the other nation trying to figure out how to keep the lights on. I don’t think the God of Heaven and Earth gives one nation the right to invade another and destroy the weaker nation’s livelihoods for what is ‘good.’ On a more personal level, Jesus’ call to nonviolence is something that we must be attentive to, and that precludes any form of a right to violence or machines and tools that make violence happen.

            So what does God give us the right to? The answer is greater than guns, our individual nations, and even the most cherished things we hold dear as a society. God’s life-giving, life-changing grace is something we have a right to. Something truly beautiful, magnificent, and transcendent beyond all of the issues we’re squabbling over as a community and as a nation.

            Ultimately the beautiful thing about our squabbling is that God hasn’t forsaken Iredell County or our world. One of the worst theologies I hear regularly is the notion that God turned his back on Jesus when Jesus was on the cross, that somehow the God of all us sinners turned his back on sin. This paints a picture of a God who leaves when the going gets tough. I’m reminded of the story of a General whose namesake I bear from the Civil War who was riding and stopped to help a soldier who was dying was in the road gutter on the side of a long forgotten road. One of General Lee’s assistants asked Lee where God was in the midst of all this, and General Lee replied, “Right here in this gutter, in the mud, with us.”

            Whether that story happened or not is up to a time long ago that we’ll never know. But the essence of the story is that in those moments where we need God most, where we want to jump across the table and hurt someone because of their views on guns, homosexuals, abortion, immigration, and the list goes on, we are reminded that God is there amidst our brokenness. God is amidst the pain we experience both individually and collectively.

            This week, remember that whatever you’re debating with someone pales in comparison to the God-given right of grace that we all have. Remember whose we all are, and in that beauty strive to make our realities all a little brighter. These conversations are ones we need to have, but they are ones that are best had in the light God’s of glory and grace.